Goodbye
by InfinityAndOne
Summary: [One-Shot] Ethan says goodbye and his colleagues listen. Trigger warning: suicide.


Goodbye

 _I don't know what to say, really. I certainly never imagined I'd be sat down writing something like this. That baffles me. I've read very few of these (thankfully) while working in the ED, and I always thought that whenever the person writes them, they can't stop. They just pour everything into their one final chance at having a voice._

 _But here I sit, with my pen mostly hovering above the paper. I guess I'm doing this out if decency really. I don't care about having a voice now, but it's probably more polite to explain what I'm doing._

 _But you would have guessed if you're reading this note. You would have found it next to my dead body. And it doesn't take a genius to work out why I'm ending my life._

 _Yet if by some blissful chance you don't know, I want to be with my brother. I never expected, ever, to walk into resus and see my brother's cold and lifeless body. Bloody and opened beneath the stained sheets. I can't quite describe it in any other way than my world ended there and then. Crashed and died around me._

 _Cal was my only family left and I miss him. I really, really do. If it hadn't been for Charlie staying with me that night, I probably would have done this a lot sooner. But in that time I had to think, I knew that I couldn't leave just then. I had to make sure that whatever bastard ended my brother's life would never see the light of day again._

 _And now he's gone, locked up in a cell. And I'm sorry for those I hurt along the way. But you have to understand, I had to do it. I had to do whatever it took to get justice for Cal. I couldn't let him down._

 _That doesn't matter anyway. You all hate me, and I hate me too. I hate who I became but I don't regret it, because I knew all along that my life would end soon anyway. And it's better that you hate me. I don't want to assume anyone would miss me, I'm not that missable, but at least no-one will care or try to save me._

 _I'm not worth saving. I have no family, no friends, no future. I have no-one and nothing and that's okay. I don't want anything._

 _All I want is to see Cal again. To apologise that his life was cut short because of me. To hug him and tell him how much I love him. To hope he doesn't hate me too. And even if he does, that doesn't matter. Because I doubt there's an afterlife anyway._

 _I've come to hope there is. After losing so many people, I really really hope I get to see them again. But whether I will or won't, I'm going to try._

 _I'm sorry, and I wish you all the best._

 _Ethan_

* * *

It was at night when they found him. Lying there, pale and lifeless just like his brother. There was no blood, but there was also no rise and fall of his chest. Instead, there next to his body, were two bottles of alcohol and three empty blister packets of paracetamol.

Of course there was one other thing. A barely legible, messily written note. The paper was slightly crumpled and there were a few ink smudges, but there was no denying what it was.

And the last time anyone had heard from Ethan was three days prior. He was long gone.

They all blamed themselves. They should have seen it coming, they said. They should have noticed he was breaking down, they said.

But he hid it well, Charlie said, ever consoling the team. But he didn't want anyone to know and he had planned this from the start, Charlie said.

And Charlie was right. There was no way they could have known. However much they tortured themselves over all the signs Ethan was displaying, none of them would ever have known he had intended to end his life. Had intended it for three months.

The funeral was a week after. He was buried next to his brother, together forever.

And they all read his note. And they all hated themselves. Charlie tried to guide them, help them through the turmoil, but those two boys were like his sons, and he would forever regret not being able to save them.

But there was one thought all of them held, through the grieving process, through their birthdays and the anniversaries of their deaths, for years and years afterwards, whenever any of them went to the Hardy-Knight Ward, whenever they thought of them, of their friends that were as good as family.

Cal and Ethan are together again.


End file.
